It's hard to connect to sailmail, my last blog is still in the outbox. We turned the engine on last night because the wind is against us as the forecast predicted. We are going around 4.7 knots with winds of 12-15 knots from the north. Our position is 35' 14.12S: 074' 36.65W The waves are not very big and it's all okay onboard. Nina and Lucas sleep for 12 hours. Werner got a good sleep last night and he had a good breakfast. I'm glad he got his sea legs!

Yesterday we did 185 miles in 24 hours. The wind was strong 25 knots from south and we sailed very fast all day and night. Today the wind decreased and at the moment we have 12 knots. Nina and I found our sea legs in our drug cabinet (a seasick table) just after we left. Lucas found his in last night. Anybody has seen Werner's sea legs? I hope we didn't left behind in Valdivia. We are all good, not doing much, just getting used to the sailing again after all the months we using the engine.

The forecast is for light north winds for tomorrow. We are planning to go to Valparaiso to spend some days waiting for a front to pass. At the moment we have 12 knots of wind and our speed is around 5.8 knots. We are at the moment at 36' 05.12S: 074 07.26W and is 20:15 local time.

We left this morning. Our fridge is working, no more warm beer in the Pacific. Now we can catch a big fish and keep for some days! We were lucky that we contacted Roni from Alwoplast. He had a new compressor that we needed for our boat to replace our broken one and they fitted it ours and it's all looking good. Alwoplast is a boatyard that custom builds multihull boats and they also do some maintenance and storage (a small pier next to the Club the Yates) for yachts (www.alwoplast.cl). Roni andSaviowere very efficient and friendly. To them our big thank you. The weather is not very good for us to go to Juan Fernandez or Easter islands, so we first will head north close to the coast before we go west. At least it will be warmer than here in some days. It will take us about a month to get to Gambier. This is our longest passage yet and we will let you know how we get along.

We've done all the maintenance we wanted on the boat; it's loaded with food, diesel, water, gas... We asked the Police, Customs and Navy to get our paper work done on Thursday for us to be able to leave on Friday. We know that Friday is not a day to start the trip but we wanted to go down the river to be ready to leave on Saturday.
The Police said they were coming on Friday only, not before. They came at 9:00am as they said but the Customs arrived only in the afternoon. The day was awful, raining and windy and they knew we would not leave that day. We waited for the Navy all afternoon and we decided to call on the radio. They said they would come at 10:00am the next day. After some pleading they said they could come at 8:30 instead of 10:00am. We spend the time we had to organising the boat, Nina did lots of baking and we were ready. All organised and the weather looked good. The winds would be a bit strong but from the back, so we would go fast in the right direction.
Next morning the Navy came at 8:30 to fill up the forms, all done efficiently. We said goodbye to the people at the marina and we started to release the lines when we saw a navy officer coming on the pier. He said that his colleague forgot to let us know that the Port was closed. No boats were allowed to go out. At the same time Werner realised that our fringe was not working. So, ready set...stay.
We asked permission to go to another site of the Marina that was close to a boatyard. They said we could move there without a problem.
Saturday, Werner spent all afternoon until almost 10:00pm trying to fix the fridge following the instructions Carlos (Werner's brother) was giving via skype. The result after all the hard work was that we need a new compressor for the fridge. I'll cut the story short, the old fridge has a different gas than the new ones, there are no place selling new fringes....the next day was Sunday!
So, we are still in Valdivia, we are getting the help of Roni from the Alwoplast to get and fit a new compressor in Kleiner Bar. He is been very helpful and tomorrow there is a technician coming to change the gas and to fit the new compressor! Yuppie! This is just to show that you should never even plan to say that you are leaving on a Friday!!!
I'll post a note to let you know that we are really leaving.

We are in Valdivia for more than a week now. I have been trying to update the blog but we have been doing lots of stuff and not stopping much.
The marina is small but very good, we even have a kitchen that we can use. The people are very friendly. The town is nice and close to the Marina and it's easy to go to a shop or supermarket.
We are getting the boat ready and after all the time in the channels it's nice to say that our list is not big. We got almost everything done except Werner is at the moment up in the mast. The main things in our list was to fix GPS (done), fix engine starter key (done), clean the boat and check if we had some mould hiding somewhere (done and I'm happy to say that I didn't need to wash lots of clothes that were stored under the beds), fridge (we are waiting for a part that is coming from Brazil and crossing our finger that Carlos, Werner's brother, has been able to fix it), fix the VHF antenna (done), washing clothes (it's sunny and the marina have a washing machine : -)), change oil, check the windvane and stock the boat with food because French Polynesia is very expensive.

We want to leave after the weekend as soon the weather permit. The plan for the rest of the year is to stop in Juan Fernandez, Easter Island, Gambier, French Polynesia, Cook Islands, Tonga and back to New Zealand. To confess, when we started to head north to Chiloé I started to be a bit sad that we are already going back, but it's time for us to head back to land life.

Since today was Sunday (and mother's day) we had pancakes for breakfast. I wonder who invented pancakes? We left the island and motored up the river. Lucas and I did some crafts with the cards from his birthday. The river got a bit narrower and we finally reached the town. We saw a huge pile of sand for construction, it looked like a mountain. On one side of the river there were lots of houses but on the other side only reeds and trees. We go to the marina at about 2:00 pm and tied in the end of the pier. Lucas and I went to shore to explore. There's a big communal kitchen and lounge with TV and an okay playground. We went on the internet for a while and didn't have lunch. We went for a walk into town and went into the market and Hush Puppies (where Dad got some new shoes). WE went into an electronic store and bought a hand held blender to make milkshakes. Dad also bought his Easter present, a frying pan. We got some food in the supermarket and went back to the boat. We had dinner at the communal kitchen and I made a banana smoothie. Then we had a nice shower and went to sleep.

I don't think anyone knows who invented pancakes, they've been around for a LONG time. Did you know Shakespeare even referred to them, at least four times in his plays: "All’s Well That Ends Well" and "As You Like It". Guess he liked them too!